Introduction to Maya - Rendering in Arnold
This course will look at the fundamentals of rendering in Arnold. We'll go through the different light types available, cameras, shaders, Arnold's render settings and finally how to split an image into render passes (AOV's), before we then reassemble it i
# 1 27-04-2012 , 10:24 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a

Sketchbook

Can't believe it's been seven months since me and Andy had that competition! My graduation is next quarter (around September) and my work is getting closer to being finished work that can be put in my reel. I want to be more active in forums and I can never forget how much SimplyMaya helped me in the past! I will be posting up my WIPs on this thread and will hopefully be poking around other topics when I have time.

Feel free to critique as much as you want. Please don't go easy. I appreciate compliments, but telling me that you like my artwork doesn't help me improve it any.


Last edited by Jr.Who; 17-02-2014 at 03:48 PM.
# 2 27-04-2012 , 10:52 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a
The interior was all modeled in Maya and rendered in Maxwell. Forgot to put the cushions in, hide some tidbits, and smooth the geo before I rendered the shot. Still have to UV map and texture it all. Just wanted to see how the lighting was. I'll probably use IES profiles the second time around. Underneath it is the reference that I used.

The iceberg was all made in Vue. It needs to be tweaked as it looks too cartoony. A foreground element is required as the scale is not clear.

There are some projects for my internship that I won't be able to post until they are finished and my director gives me permission. I'm also currently working on a freelance project, which I will hopefully be able to finish up and post soon.

Attached Thumbnails

Last edited by Jr.Who; 17-02-2014 at 03:48 PM.
# 3 28-04-2012 , 06:42 AM
# 4 28-04-2012 , 11:07 AM
murambi's Avatar
Head of 3d Admedia
Join Date: May 2007
Location: nairobi , ken-ya
Posts: 1,340
Lovely interior mate but could you show another shot

# 5 28-04-2012 , 01:22 PM
honestdom's Avatar
The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: London
Posts: 2,381
Not sure I see the benefit of using maxwell. I would try to better match the camera I think. Does your reference have any camera metadata?
It's hard to say anything without textures. Are you doing a visualisation course?

Iceberg looks flat and too dark in the shadows.

# 6 28-04-2012 , 07:31 PM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
I feel like the outside of the room is possibly too blue
Also the iceberg reflection looks too defined for a ripply ocean. It should be quite scattered.

Keep up the awesome work!

# 7 29-04-2012 , 07:00 AM
bullet1968's Avatar
Lifetime Member
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Australia
Posts: 4,255
You did well in the end with the room. It looks to me as though things are a little off scale, whether or not people notice this is unlikely. In particluar the circular coffee table and the shelf oon the back of the semi circular suite stand out to me. Other than that...not bad at all mate.

cheers bullet


bullet1968

"A Darkness at Sethanon", a book I aspire to model some of the charcters and scenes
# 8 29-04-2012 , 04:17 PM
honestdom's Avatar
The Nurb Herd
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: London
Posts: 2,381

I feel like the outside of the room is possibly too blue

In the reference or the render? user added image

# 9 29-04-2012 , 10:21 PM
EduSciVis-er
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Toronto
Posts: 3,374
I didn't read the post carefully. Obviously the real world is wrong. I can tell by the pixels.

# 10 29-04-2012 , 11:31 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a
mastone, thank you!

murambi, when it's closer to being finished I'll render a few more shots. In the mean time, check out this topic:
https://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=36395

honestdom, Maxwell was my choice because I wanted a more physical rendering engine. It was incredibly simple to set up and the multilight feature is really fun! Unfortunately there isn't any metadata. I don't know how much closer I'll be able to match the camera angle because of the distortion from the camera lens. One of the things I worked on the longest was trying to match up the angle, but I finally decided that I should probably be using more time creating the scene! And no, I'm not taking a course. This is a personal project.

Completely agree with you about the iceberg! The material needs to be tweaked, especially with the SSS.

stwert, thanks! I will look into the water being like that.

bullet1968, thank you! I know what you mean by the scale. The modeling is definitely not finished for this project.

Thanks for the help guys! These will be added to my to do list. Hopefully I'll get a chance to work on my personal projects soon.

# 11 12-07-2012 , 06:18 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a
Just started my final quarter of school! I have been working on my client's project a lot lately, so I am hoping to have that finished very soon so that I can show it off. Last quarter I also spent a considerable amount of time learning modo, which I love way more than Maya. Maya was making me a bit annoyed with all the bugs that still have not been taken care of.

Definitely have not forgotten about you guys, just been a bit busy. I mostly just read on the forums and don't post much unless I feel it is necessary. Here's my latest personal project, all done in modo (as well as the reference photo):

Attached Thumbnails
# 12 13-07-2012 , 01:36 PM
ctbram's Avatar
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Michigan, USA
Posts: 2,998
Agree with you about maya and becoming very annoyed with the bugs and, for me, the out dated modeling tools and just shameful state of things like the nurbs and subd tools.

Maya has a adequate basic polygon tool set, I'd like to see better falloffs, some improvements to things like the bevel tool, support for background constraints which could be just improving make live such that you can push geometry onto live geo, some retopo tools, etc.

My feeling on Maya's nurbs and subd's are that they have been included as some kind of "marketing team bait and switch". The tool sets for both are very limited and for nurbs have become so buggy that they are almost unusable! The round and fillet tools are in a word "disgraceful".

It's like autodesk and even alias before them have just thrown in the towel on even maintaining the modeling tools in maya let alone improving and growing them! It feels as an outsider looking in like there is some poor intern named Bob that has been assigned as the entire modeling development "team".

I started jumping back and forth between modo for tricky modeling and surfacing tasks over a year ago and it was initially like 90% maya and 10% modo but lately my modeling has been 50/50 and when I get the recently added nurbs and subd addon for modo I will probably cross over and be doing most of my modeling in modo.


"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Sir Isaac Newton, 1675

Last edited by ctbram; 13-07-2012 at 01:38 PM.
# 13 14-07-2012 , 03:27 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a
I understand that it is just a tool, but I have a feeling that modo will be moving further than Maya. Luxology cares so much more about their customers. Also, I personally talked to an Autodesk representative and he even said that Autodesk is trying to get all their users to switch to Max.

# 14 09-08-2012 , 03:58 PM
Jr.Who
Guest
Posts: n/a
Her guys,

I have finished my midterm reel. Here is the link:

https://vimeo.com/47183736

My senior midterm review was last night and I was given some critique. The rest of this letter contains that critique so that you know what was already said and what my plans are for the next four and a half weeks (until my final review). The mountains and iceberg were made in Vue and the interior and exterior are done in modo. I was told to show wireframes for all of my shots.

Mountains shot:
•Show the layers/passes
•Make the trees smaller
•Render out planes for foreground, middle ground, background, then composite and animate to create parallaxing

Interior shot:
•Lights come on too slow
•Fix smoothing of objects
•Show close up shots of props
•Use depth passes
•Use some camera movement
•Split reflection, shadow, specular, etc. passes

For both the interior and exterior I was told to show the reference images (but label them as reference so that people are not confused). The iceberg shot is going to be trimmed off. Instead of working further on the iceberg I will be making this watch instead:

https://www.amazon.com/Akribos-XXIV-A.../dp/B0033WTDNW

I have watchmaker's screwdrivers, so I will be taking it apart and modeling all the little pieces and then animating it. If you have any critique, please be honest and tell me what I should do!


Last edited by Jr.Who; 17-02-2014 at 03:49 PM.
# 15 09-08-2012 , 11:43 PM
Registered User
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Sliema Malta
Posts: 497
I think that you should def scratch the iceberg shot. It doesn't look very appealing. Maybe throwing a water shader on it and changing the milkiness to fake the SSS. The archviz work has nice colors and lighting. So this is your last year of college?


Last edited by Chavfister; 10-08-2012 at 03:50 AM.
Posting Rules Forum Rules
You may not post new threads | You may not post replies | You may not post attachments | You may not edit your posts | BB code is On | Smilies are On | [IMG] code is On | HTML code is Off

Similar Threads